1. Field of the Invention
The present invention involves a toy gun which has been developed to create realistic gun action, including the actual sound of cocking a gun and firing it. More specifically, the present invention is directed to a toy gun which utilizes electrical components as well as mechanical means to create these effects.
2. Prior Art Statement
Numerous patents have issued over the years to toy inventors which cover toy guns which create different types of effects. The following prior art patents illustrate the development of this art:
U.S. Pat. No. 2,770,916, issued to Joseph Sigg describes a trigger mechanism for toy guns which utilizes a trigger and spring arrangement to cause a barrel and a fin-like portion to reciprocate. However, the fin-like member and barrel can only create the sound of their materials of construction and not the realistic sound of the present invention, nor is there any direct relationship between a swivel cocking mechanism and an electronic sounding mechanism such as in the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,741,872, also issued to Joseph Sigg, describes a multiple action toy gun which is indicated to be a space gun in which the ray ejector barrel is subject to rapid oscillatory movement in the gun stock by means of a cam actuated retractor mechanism. The actuator mechanism employs a resilient means for effecting oscillatory movement of the ray barrel complimented by sound which is resiliently mounted in the stock of the gun to assume a forward position from which it is displaced by a cam actuator retractor mechanism. It relies primarily on saw teeth and a trigger with a pawl whereby a single retractor stroke will cause repeated motion. Again, this patent does not teach the use of a circuit board to generate sound nor does it have the activating mechanism which is a critical feature of the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,808,143 issued to Yi Kuo describes a toy machine gun which has a trigger associated with a micro switch. The micro switch engages a rotatable wheel through a reduction gear. A link assembly together with the rotatable wheel provides a reciprocating motion and creates a kick-back. In addition, the link assembly is arranged to actuate another micro switch which controls an audio circuit board and a speaker for generating a sound mimicking a gun shot. In this particular invention, there is no cocking mechanism and no activation mechanisms associated with the sounding for cocking and for firing of the toy gun of the type utilized in the present invention. Further, the type of repeated reciprocal motion of this prior art is not utilized in the present invention and this device achieves a different result using different means.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,641, issued to Hun Chin Fu describes a continuous water ejecting pistol with a simultaneous sound and red flashing effect. Again, this toy gun does not employ the activating mechanisms and cocking mechanism for the connected sounding system as in the present invention.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,365,439, issued to Zbigniew Litynski, describes a toy laser-type gun which incorporates light and sound sources for simultaneous generation of light pulses and sounds reminiscent of an outer space laser gun when a trigger is depressed. One may wonder how the inventor could reminisce of outer space laser guns, but, nonetheless, this particular prior art patent employs reflectors and pulsating lights with electronic circuitry but, again, does not utilize the mechanisms or the sounding system of the present invention. U.S. Pat. No. 4,114,311 to Thomas Chow describes a toy gun having a barrel and a handle with a supporting pivoted trigger and a spring pressed hammer engagable with an elongated slide having drive teeth engagable with pinion drive means for a noise producing unit in the barrel which includes a vibratable spring that produces a sound resembling a ricocheting bullet. There is no provision for mechanisms such as in the present invention for effecting a realistic cocking sound connected to actual cocking followed by the actual sound of a shot upon firing of the gun.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,175,353 describes a toy simulated ray gun which includes controllable audio and visual effects simulating a fictitious futuristic space age weapon. It includes electronic components with power source, timer means and audio generation means so as to generate sounds with either a single shot or a continuous high pitch or a blast sound that rapidly decays when the trigger is pulled to fire the gun and to simultaneously activate the lights according to a pre-selected mode. Again, this prior art patent does not describe the cocking and firing mechanisms utilized in the present invention.